Well, I'm gone for a couple of days and this is what happens?

The whole forum changes! It's nice to see many of the same members are here. ...Anyway, I'll still continue with my defense of the Resurrection, I've just been a little more busy than I originally thought I would be.

God Bless!

 

Jatom,

I only wish your defense of the Resurrection had been saved somewhere. Had I not cleared my cache I would have a copy to repost.

It was very 'McDowellian' in its apologetics.

Look forward to more!

 

Juiceman, you can find most things from the old forum if you do a google search on specific words from threads.

here's the old Philosophy & Religion site (granted a lot of the stuff from march-may is lost...) : http://www.hipforums.com/forumdisplay.php3?FID=21

 

ahhhh yes.. Googles cache will do in a pinch!

We better hurry though... its usually gone from their cache after about a week or so.

The other option is the 'Wayback Machine' which records websites back to 96.

archive.org ??

 

Crucifixion/Resurrection Chart

http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/res_chart.htm

 

Chief,

Thank you for resisting the urge to spam the boards with massive articles from SullivanCountry.
The link works perfectly fine and since your not adding any of your own thoughts, ideas, opinions then its helpful to simply visit that article when we can rather than trying to blur our eyeballs through what amounts to an outside website being posted in the middle of a thread.

You sure do love that Sullivancountry website!

 

By the way,

I cant help but notice the author of that article is both very stupid and also irresponsible.

He implies that the four gospels have 'contradictions' because 2 mention two angels at the Tomb vs. 2 gospels that only mention one of the angels.

Logically, there is no contradiction.

Wierdly, the author gets confused on this really basic notion and mistakes it as such.
[there being the stupidity]

He also seems to be be quoting 'scriptures' yet is actually using his own DESCRIPTION of what HE THINKS the scripture was imparting LOL!

Actually it would be funny irresponsibility if it wasnt so tragic!

Funny article though overall!

 

the point is obvious, if you guys are claiming that the Bible is the absolute word of God, then God has alzheimers

 

As I correctly pointed out before, nothing is 'obvious' based on that amateurish and falty article you linked us to.

The writer makes so many errors, assumptions and abuses of logic that its impossible to take seriously.

The accounts were written by four different authors. Just based on writing styles, perspective, chance and clarifications your bound to have different (note NOT contradictory but different) accounts.

Thats a good thing!

Just another good example - One writer decided to describe how Jesus met a possessed man at a cemetary. In another account, a Gospel writer decided (for whatever reason) to mention there was another possessed man there too.
The second demoniac wasnt really 'involved' much.
Its simply one writer adding a few more details, another getting more to the point.

Now this Sullivancounty author seems baffled by this!
(As do you Chief)

This is actually listed as a 'Contradiction' LOL!?

Of course, its not and if anything testifies to the accuracy and beauty of having four writers and four accounts.
(That is a very good thing,, just ask police and judges)

There are numerous examples and yes - some are 'difficult' but you wouldnt know that by this article... he simply confuses everything by using some of the most grotesque 'paraphrasing' Ive ever seen.

Chief, I know your in love with SullivanCounty but I implore you to find more serious articles in which to antagonise Christians with.
HOnestly - that one is pretty bad.

Cheers!

 

Here is the original post as posted by Jatom in the old forums
----------------------------------------------------------

The Resurrection

The Resurrection

Does the resurrection have any evidence? Is there any way to verify the validity of the eyewitness accounts? Can the New Testament be trusted? I'm attempt to answer these questions in the next few posts.

Part one: The New Testament

Many seem to believe that the New Testament has been corrupted and can longer be trusted. But is this really the case? In oder to build a case for the resurrection, I first need to establish a case for the the New Testament.

Consider the following:

1.Atom wrote a defense of the ressurction of christ, and Christiianity on Hp forums

2.Jatom wwrote a deffense of the ressurection of Chrst, an hristianity on Hip forums

3.Jatm wrote a defense of the ressurction and Christianity n Hip forums

4.Jatomwrote a defense of the ressurectionn of Christt, and Christianity on Hip frums

5.Jatom wrole a d femse of t e ressurection of Christ, and Christianoity on Hip Forums.

From the following 5 writings we could determine what the original text said:

Jatom wrote a defense of the resurrection of Christ, and Christianity, on Hip Forums.

This is the same method used for secular texts as well as NT criticism. The manuscript copies are used to determine the original. For many well-known classical authors, such as Plutarch, Seutonius, Tacitus, Polybius, Thucydides, Xenophon...,the total number of manuscript copies is typically less than ten with the earliest copies dating from 750 to 1600 years after the original was first written, yet, in light of this, very few scholars question the reliability of such writing. One only needs to compare the numbers mentioned above with the New Testament, to reveal how vastly inferior their textual evidence is. The New Testament contains 24,000(!) manuscript copies, with the earliest fragments and complete copies dating between 50 and 300 years after the original. Not to mention 36,000 early quotations from the Church fathers, from which alone the entire New testament (save for a few verses) could be constructed. This is an overwhelming amount of evidence, more so than any other ancient writing.

So what about the 24,000 manuscripts? Do they show any signs of tampering? Nope. The vast majority of variants are recognized as unintentional copyist errors: repetition of words or sentences, grammatically errors, etc. In fact, The New Testament is considered 99% textually pure with NO Christian Doctrine dependent upon ANY textual variant. And in regards to textual variants, one site notes:

"There is now general agreement that the textual problems in Shakespeare are of such complexity that no text can be established that will commend the general assent that constitutes 'definitiveness.' " [ibid., 26] Note: This is the closest I have seen in any "secular" textual criticism book to the statements of despair and woe made by some N[ew]T[estament] text-critics to the effect, "We can NEVER know what was REALLY written!!!" (See below.) Most critics, however, are of a far more positive bent! For example, though an edition of Richard III "can advertise that they contain more than a thousand variants from the conventional text" [Bowe.TLC, 3], we do not see text critics wondering if that play actually was written entirely differently! "Hamlet will not be revealed as a woman, or as the villian; he will still be melancholy and at odds with the life about him." [ibid., 8] Textual variants are important to note, but we are not going to find that they significantly alter the storyline! ​

So do we contain the original New Testament? Yes! In fact, one cannot question the reliability of the New Testament without first questioning every other ancient writing, because the evidence surrounding the New Testament is so much more superior! As one person puts notes:

Most historians accept the textual accuracy of other ancient works on far less adequate manuscript grounds than is available for the New Testament.

Now, what about the reliability of the writers (particularly the writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts, and John,)? Can we determine that they faithfully recorded what they and others saw? There are several ways to determine this. First we can look at internal evidences, i.e., we can examine the authors claims to determine if any of them disqualifies them as trustworthy writers: do they contradict themselves? Is there anything they write that would cause one to objectively suspect their trustworthiness? Do they mention objects or concepts out of their historical context (a story involving Jesus giving a sermon from the passenger side of a car, for example) The answer to these questions is no. In fact, we only see claims that serve to strengthen their reliability. For example, they record their own sins(Matt 26:56; 69-75), they put women as the finders of the empty tomb (more on this later) (Lk 24:1-3), they record there deity's own ignorance (Matt 24:36; Mar 13:32) and weakness's (Matt 4:2) Obviously the list goes on. The point is, the authors include often embarrassing events to the effect of "like it or not, this is what really happened." This serves to strengthen their integrity, and lower the possibly of the stories being fabricated. (More on this later.)

We can also examine any external evidences to determine the validity of their claims. Going back to the above illustration about Jatom and his defense.

Jatom wrote a defense of the resurrection of Christ, and Christianity, on Hip Forums

Several external evidences that could verify the above statement. Was “Jatom” ever mentioned in other places? Did “Hip Forums” really exist, and was it a place where writings could be archived? What was the “resurrection”, and was it something that was defensible? What about “Christianity”, is it mentioned elsewhere? What is known of “Christ”, and is he/she/it said to have resurrected?

The New Testament excels in this area too take the following:

Is there corroborating evidence for the claims made in the New Testament outside the New Testament? Or are the claims or events of the New Testament successfully refuted by other competent reports or eyewitnesses? Are there statements or assertions in the New Testament that are demonstrably false according to known archaeological, historic, scientific or other data?

The New Testament again passes the test. For example, Luke wrote one-fourth of the New Testament. His careful historical writing has been documented from detailed personal archaeological investigation by former critic Sir William Ramsay, who stated after his painstaking research, "Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness." 1 A. N. Sherwin-White, the distinguished historian of Rome, stated of Luke: "For [the book of] Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd." ​

Note that there has has yet to be any archaeological data that contradicts the New Testament.


This short exposition is merely a brief overview, and I will be willing to go into further details for anyone who wants further information. The point of it was the establish the reliability of the New Testament.

 

By the way, here are two chronologies that show how the scriptures do not contradict each other.

http://www.carm.org/diff/table_crucifixion.htm

http://www.carm.org/diff/table_resurrection.htm

And I agree with what Juiceman posted. Just because one gospel includes information that others do not does not mean that they are contradictory. Contradictory would be something like one gospel says explicitly "Christ did not speak during the Crucifixtion" where another one states "Christ spoke these words during the Crucifixtion..."

Personally, I think that skeptics place an unreasonable standard on the gospels. If they are different, the skeptic yells "See! They are contradictory! They cannot be trusted!", but if they only covered the same events and those events had very little variation, the same skeptic would yell "See! They simply plagiarize from one another! They cannot be trusted!" Seems to me to be an unreasonable standard.

 

yeh- just people looking from different directions...(the gospel accounts) which is normal (cept it's about the supernatural), which without faith is just words.

 

The Bible was physically written by man, (which explains contradictions between authors) but it was influenced by God.

Besides.... it all comes down to faith:
"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." (Hebrews 11:1-3)

and so on and so forth the examples of faith throughout the rest of that chapter

 

ah, maybe it's a sign that you shouldn't go

 

Yeh maybe you're right, but unfortunately I'm in and out all the time. And just out of sheer curiosity, what made you pull up a thread that's almost 2 years old? Hm, anyway, it appears that I was supposed to be writing a defense of the resurrection, which I never finished, probably because I forgot about it. LOL sometimes I can be so scatter-brained! I'm surprised I've never showed up to a meeting or something wearing no pants!